


The Bad Sleep Well - 3- Fault

by sharkcar



Series: The Bad Sleep Well [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Clones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 12:01:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19250791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkcar/pseuds/sharkcar
Summary: An imagining of the lives of clones after the Clone Wars. Just some simple men, making their ways in the universe, in all their tragicomic glory.





	1. Take

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rex is tired of all the losing.

Medical Frigate- Garel System  
  
Blaster fire zinged past their heads. Rex waved them forward along the corridor. His voice issued from inside his Phase II helmet, with the blue jaig eyes on the forehead. “Move, move, move. I’ll cover you!”  
  
Wedge and Hobbie ran past him, pushing the floating palette laden with crates. Without breaking his heavy, steady run, Rex turned and fired down the corridor through the smoke.  
  
“Get to the hangar bay and get us a shuttle,” Rex shot out the blast door controls and the doors shut separating them from the Stormtroopers in pursuit. The blaster fire stopped coming at them.  
  
“I’ve never been on this ship before, how am I supposed to know which way to go?” Hobbie hesitated for a moment, causing the forward momentum to swerve the palette into the wall in an intersection. A few of the crates fell off.  
  
Rex used his gun to wave the direction.  
  
Wedge tossed the crates back on the palette and they got moving again.  
  
“Damnit, Derek, Imperial architecture is put together from prefabricated components from standardized plans,” Rex took point and fired sideways to hit door controls and cut off the pursuit. He fired with both guns using a combination of moves that Skywalker used to refer to as one of his ‘Gun Katas’. Of course, truthfully, there had been no intent in the technique. Years of experience and muscle memory were behind Rex's fluid style. Skywalker had wanted Rex to teach him. He ended up being pretty good.  
  
Rex continued to lecture Hobbie in what he thought was common sense, “Run the way you think you should and you will probably remember exactly where to go.”  
  
“Yeesh, how have you not realized that by now?” Wedge was clearly the smarter of the two new pilot recruits.  
  
‘Hobbie,’ or ‘Damnit Derek’ as Rex usually ended up calling him, was having a hard time adjusting to life outside the convenience of Imperial orders regulating his life, “Not all of us grew up on a fancy shipbuilding world like Corellia.”  
  
Rex reminded himself to arrange a briefing to tell the recruits things like this. He realized he couldn’t take it for granted that they knew things, the way he could with his brothers. The Kamino clones had been more literally sheltered than these Rebel kids, but at least in the academy, clones had been given a halfway decent education. Basic knowledge could save lives. Rex’s toilet seminar had already reduced instances of communicable diseases and the septic system backing up from over-use of paper and used prophylactics. Oh well, Rex thought. At least they were being safe in some way.  
  
Rex had planned this raid to liberate some doses of vaccines from an Imperial medical frigate. Many of the Rebels’ recruits were from places where easy access to such things was unknown. Rex and the new pilots who had defected from the Imperial Academy were chosen because they had had real modern medical care at one time and possessed antibodies against the things that infested hospital ships. But these guys were pretty new to things like burglary. So it had turned into a bit of a do.  
  
They turned a corner and there, just like he knew it would be, was a small hangar bay for maintenance. Ship repair areas were left less defended than the regular hangars, especially if the ship had been alerted to a threat. In those instances, protocol was that mechanics reported to quarters.  
  
They looked around for something flyable. There was a personal shuttle that looked all in one piece. It even had a gun turret.  
  
Rex slowed down to protect the flank while the pilots loaded the palette into the ship. This ship roared to life as Wedge went to the controls. Rex caught his breath for a moment. Then he began more slowly walking to the ramp when another group of troopers ran in from a side entrance. Rex turned back to take a count.  
  
The squadron captain with the cloth shoulder patch stopped in his tracks. His body language was that of recognition, “Rex?”  
  
Rex recognized the voice as fraternal. The trooper captain hesitated to give the order to fire. Suddenly, a TIE fighter standing next to them exploded, engulfing the whole squadron in flame. Rex looked up to see Hobbie manning the turret on the shuttle, giving him the thumbs up. Rex made a sprint for the ramp as the shuttle lifted off, the ramp raised, closing him safely inside. The explosion caught other ships and blew the hangar to pieces as they crossed the shield into space. Then Rex’s legs trembled. He ripped the helmet off his head. His legs seemed to fall out from under him. He fell to his knees gasping for breath.  
  
He didn’t even know which brother that one had been.  
  
Hobbie descended the ladder from the turret. “You alright, Rex? You look shaken up. The explosion get to you there, old man?” He patted Rex on the shoulder.  
  
Wedge did his best Rex impression from the cockpit, “Damnit Derek!”  
  
Rex did his best to hide how derailed he felt. He let Hobby help him up. “The old heart can only take so much,” he offered by way of an explanation.  
  
Atollon  
  
Rex spent the afternoon setting up a little station to distribute the vaccines to the kids at Chopper Base. A line was starting to form when Kanan walked up.  
  
“Can I help?” Kanan was lightsaber fighting and riding a speeder bike around and he hadn’t killed himself yet, so it was probably fine. But the terrified faces of the kids in line to get vaccines told Rex they did not enjoy the idea of a blind man with no medical experience sticking them with needles.  
  
“Ah, it’s alright Kanan, I think Wedge and Derek wanted to help,” Rex said when they were still within earshot. They had been moving off, but stopped in their tracks and slunk back for their new ‘volunteer’ assignment.  
  
“Why us?” Hobbie muttered.  
  
“Damnit Derek, you almost got him blown up,” Wedge laughed.  
  
Rex took a deep breath, trying not to think about what happened. It hadn’t been his fault. Rex was clear about that. But he knew it was going to give him nightmares. He hadn’t realized there were any brothers left in the army since the Emperor had officially decommissioned them. Rex had killed so many Stormtroopers at this point, any one of them could have been family, he supposed. Seeing his brothers die was nothing new for Rex, unfortunately.  
  
That night Rex had a dream.  
  
He was back on Umbara. Fives was with him. It looked like they were at the airbase waiting for their transport to Kiros to go rescue some Togruta artists from the Separatists. In the dream, they had their kits packed and were sitting on the tarmac sharing a bottle. Rex knew it was a dream. During the real instance he remembered they had said they’d wished they had a drink to help them sleep. But since they didn’t have one, they were wide awake and telling stories until Ahsoka showed up with the gunship.  
  
Rex’s dream self sipped from the bottle and passed it, “It’s good to see you, even this way, brother.”  
  
Only then did Rex see the giant singe hole where Fives’ heart should be.  
  
“I’m not really here,” Fives sipped. The hole grew and seemed to melt and become larger.  
  
Rex looked at the sky, it had acquired a red glow and the stars began swirling into nebulas, “Where are we?”  
  
“Nowhere,” Fives sipped again and passed the bottle, “You’re seeing what you want to see.”  
  
“So how’s death?” Dream Rex tried to sound cheerful.  
  
“There is nothing after this, you know,” Fives looked sad.  
  
“I don’t believe that,” Rex took a drink.  
  
“Everything we believed in, the Republic, the Jedi, they failed us. Nothing left to believe in,” the burning from Fives’ chest seemed to expand over his skin like a mold. "You’ve fought your whole life and still you let them take everything from you,” the blackened, burned figure that had been Fives looked at Rex.  
  
Rex shook his head, “This doesn’t sound like you.”  
  
The burning Fives seemed to think this was sad, “No, it sounds like you. The part of you that feels this way.”  
  
“How do you know?” Rex thought his dream self was a little defensive.  
  
The carbon cinders fell away from Fives, but he’d changed into Cut, “Because I’m as close to you as another being can be.”  
  
Rex shook his head slightly, “Maybe. But I am in control.”  
  
“You have many faces,” he was Wolffe now, “Doubt.”  
  
He was Gregor, “Confusion.”  
  
He was Cody, “Anger.”  
  
“No, I could always forgive. Even my enemies,” Rex thought his dream self sounded stubborn.  
  
“Could you? Can you forgive everything?” Cody asked. The sky was dark as on Umbara again.  
  
Rex heard the wheezing of a respirator in the distance. His whole body went cold. The trunks of giant trees erupted from the earth and grew to claw at a sky full of stars. He stood in the primeval forest hearing birds call. Then, in the distance, he thought he heard singing.  
  
Rex woke to the relentless thought of the instant his brother had erupted in flames in that hangar, melted inside that horrible, cheap Stormtrooper armor. Rex agonized in insomnia for a few hours trying every technique he knew to force himself to find peace. He had just gotten back to dozing when he found himself between sleep and awake. A faint presence lingered around the periphery of his eyelids. Unseen but reassuring. A thin horizon of light seemed to appear in the distance on the inside of his eyelids. Within, a woman’s silhouette clothed in sun. She had horns.  
  
“Be careful what you seek. The path to truth is often the one of suffering,” she said to him. Her voice resonated with wisdom. This was not ‘Snips’ anymore.  
  
“I…I still want to know,” Rex answered, “This life is mine to live, I want to live all of it.”  
  
“Then go to Shimia,” she told him. Even though he could only see her silhouette, he thought she looked sad. She changed into a bird and began chirping.  
  
Rex awoke to find his comlink making the sound. He shook off the sleep and picked up the device from his bedside. “This is Rex,” he croaked. He reached for his canteen and took a sip of water from it. He cleared his throat politely.  
  
Commander Sato’s voice came over the device, “Rex, Senator Organa has requested your presence at a conference this morning. He asked for you by name.”  
  
Rex hadn’t known that Senator Organa remembered who he was, or even knew that he had joined the rebellion. But he guessed the guy had to be judicious about who he talked to.  
  
During the war, Rex and Senator Organa had been acquainted through Skywalker and his girlfriend. Rex had met Organa a few times. But it was usual for clones to assume that the natural born couldn’t tell one clone from another. Never mind remember a name.  
  
“Um…sounds important,” Rex got up and stretched.  
  
“Well, this is to be kept in the strictest confidence. This particular collaboration is…delicate. Senator Organa thought it would help to have a trusted face at the table.”  
  
Rex was confused. It sounded like Sato was making some kind of clone joke, but he had never known Commander Sato to make any kind of joke.  
  
“I’ll come right away,” Rex switched off the com and hurried through his fastest bathing ritual, followed by cleaning his teeth and swishing with disinfectant. Finally, he combed his beard, put on his armor pieces and boots, and then checked himself in the mirror to make sure everything was in place. Then he marched at a good pace off to the conference. In all the rush to wake up, he couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that he’d forgotten something.  
  
\--  
  
Rex walked onto the bridge and saluted the crew he passed. Sato saw him and pointed him to a conference room with no windows.  
  
The door slid open and Senator Organa was standing on one side of the holoviewer table, looking perfect as ever in his well-tailored Core attire. His beard grooming was impeccable, Rex apprecited.  
  
Rex and Sato took their places on either side of him. Rex felt self-conscious all of a sudden, he had thought this meeting was to take place over the holo-coms. He didn’t have more than one set of clothes. The senator looked immaculate and Rex was certain he did not. There was a well known racist assumption that clones were dirty.  
  
The senator smiled at Rex and bowed his head slightly in his direction. Rex did the same. From what Skywalker had always said, Senator Organa was one of the good ones.  
  
“THE Captain Rex, how have you been, man?” the Senator used one of the old clone nicknames for him. Back in the day, Rex’s brothers had teased him mercilessly about being the most famous brother. But there was always an undercurrent of respect to it. “I hear you’re tending the Lothal cell like a garden,” he complimented. He had that easy grace of politicians. They knew how to make their attention feel personal. “Commander Sato, did you know that the Captain here trained some of the finest soldiers ever put into the field. They were something to see in action,” Organa didn’t mention anything about afterwards. About the Jedi Temple. Organa had been Cody’s most aggressive interrogator during the Jedi Purge trials.  
  
Sato nodded, “It is in this capacity as a combat trainer that we asked you here today. During the war, you trained insurgents on Onderon, including Saw Gerrera. Saw leads a larger coordinated rebellion. They’ve been very effective.”  
  
‘Naturally,’ thought Rex, ‘I trained him.’ He knew better than to say it.  
  
Sato continued, “But he is known for…questionable tactics. We are looking to improve relations, perhaps reach an understanding where we can move forward in an alliance and agree to a shared code of conduct. He said he trusts you, so we need you to help arbitrate.”  
  
In the past few months, Rex’s standing within the Rebellion seemed to have become more crucial, he had to admit. He was being consulted for more and more because he had practical experience in running an organized military. As the conflict seemed to be escalating, he was needed.  
  
“Sounds like we have everything to gain by cooperating,” Rex said cautiously, “Hopefully we can find common ground. I knew Saw to be an honorable man,” although Rex had to admit, that might have been the product of his age at the time. It is easy to be honorable when you are young and brave. Easier not to compromise or to question yourself. Saw could have changed.  
  
The Senator called up a data file on the viewer.  
  
Rex was surprised to see it was his report on the Ghost’s mission to Geonosis months before. Rex had signed the whole Ghost crew’s names, but he had filed the report to Rebellion leadership himself. Back in the Grand Army, paperwork had been required for everything. So that everyone was on the same page. It was that kind of organization that the Rebellion was lacking, Rex thought. When he didn’t hear back right away, he assumed no one had read his report and it wasn’t being followed up on, as was often the case in the Republic. But then again, Rex knew Senator Organa actually liked to read.  
  
“Now, you say you were not able to do full and thorough scans for life forms, but that as far as you could tell from surface scans, there was barely a register. The population seemed to have…vanished?”  
  
“Well, what I said specifically,” Rex knew how to respond to questioning, “was that despite numerous scans for life forms on the date in question, we were not able to detect life. A planet that once had billions of sentient life forms now registered as nearly lifeless. That allowed us to at least deduce that the population was extremely reduced if not completely wiped out. By what means, we could not possibly speculate, as we did not go to the surface. But I contended that it merits investigation and brings up a number of disconcerting questions.”  
  
“Gerrera has volunteered to share intelligence on this mission and staff it if we agree to help them out if anything...‘goes sideways,’” Commander Sato explained.  
  
Senator Organa put his hands behind his back, and addressed Rex, “But we are concerned about his reputation, he seems reckless.”  
  
Rex hazarded a judgment, but intoned as if it was a joke, “He was always that, as I knew him.”  
  
“Maybe he’ll listen to you, as a mentor,” Commander Sato was serious.  
  
“I appreciate your confidence in me sirs,” Rex acknowledged.  
  
Organa looked at the report, “If billions of beings could be exterminated…”  
  
“We at least should know what we’re up against,” Saw marched into the room as if he owned it. He patted Rex’s bald head, “I see we’re sporting the same haircut these days.”  
  
The swagger was still there, same old Saw. Rex relaxed. They clasped hands in greeting, not anything too sweet, it was still in the position of arm wrestling. The greeting of men who enjoy a good pissing contest.  
  
Saw pointed at Rex and addressed the other two, “You ask this guy a question, he will give you a thirty minute debriefing and a homework assignment. Then the next minute, he’s doing gratuitous back flips off of tanks.”  
  
Commander Sato looked so confused.  
  
Senator Organa only nodded, “THE Captain Rex.”  
  
“I told you, I’ll listen to what HE has to say,” Saw agreed stubbornly. “I’m free to do the mission regardless, it’s my people at risk. All I ask is cooperation. Captain Rex’s intel will no doubt make us successful.”  
  
Rex slipped naturally into debriefing mode as he scrolled through the illustrations he had attached to his report, “The Geonosians live underground, there is a chance the population migrated there in case of surface catastrophe. Survivors could possibly tell us what happened. Or we could find evidence of who caused this. If there is a threat, it benefits us all to know what it is.”  
  
“Agreed,” Saw spoke up, “What if we meet hostiles? What are the bugs like? Do they have any weaknesses we can exploit?”  
  
“The bugs are builders. They’re made to adapt. Very successfully. So be cautious. Oh, and watch out for the mind worms. They get in through your nose and force you to do the will of the queen as part of a hive mind.”  
  
Commander Sato had turned green.  
  
Senator Organa pointed a finger, “I would like to make a point now to discuss what we would do with such intelligence if it is there.”  
  
“Ah, the Senator might have to tell the press that he finds the evidence ‘very concerning’,” Gerrera nudged Rex in the ribs with his elbow. He didn’t seem to have much patience for politics.  
  
“We can’t open an official investigation without evidence. Surely you can see that?” Organa held his hand out palm down.  
  
“Then we’ll just have to get it,” Saw crossed his arms.  
  
Rex was often surprised how many meetings ended up as pissing contests.  
  
Rex changed the subject, “My old plans will show you where to find an opening to the tunnels. I have stored the ones I mapped as we fought our way through down there.”  
  
“What were you being chased by, bugs?” Saw asked.  
  
“Reanimated bug corpses with their mind worms still attached and looking for a new host,” Rex looked over, Sato looked like he might be ill. Rex went on like it wasn’t anything, but he was honestly enjoying it. “Now, communications will be difficult underground. Also it’s dark in the tunnels.”  
  
“Well, then I guess I get the fun job,” Saw nodded knowingly.  
  
“The official objectives: confirm the initial findings in Rex’s report, that the population is gone or at least catastrophically reduced; discover evidence as to the possible source of this population reduction; and to discover evidence as to the agency and possible motive,” the Senator sounded rather lawyerly, “If we gather sufficient evidence to open a case, you have my promise that I will do so, without hesitation. At least the public face. Privately, no matter what you find, I will distribute any intelligence among my sources to investigate further and take what action we need to.”  
  
“We are talking about an atrocity, a genocide, a…mass extinction! If what Rex says is true, life on this world might have been destroyed for good. We all know who is responsible, we don’t just need to know how, what we need to know is why! What is somebody hiding that is worth that to them? Or…is life worth so little? Either way…if they get away with it, they’ll do it again, Organa, mark my words! You serve monsters and they’re going to swallow you up!” Saw was still full of outrage. That was a problem with being too smart, he could see the big picture, how far the injustice went. His patience with the cautious had always been thin.  
  
Senator Organa wasn’t having any of it, “I don’t SERVE anyone but my family and the people of Alderaan. It is my duty to protect them from harm, at least through our standing in the Senate we have been able to limit the harm being done. And I choose to defend life in this galaxy further by building this rebellion.”  
  
“Well I don’t serve you! Don’t worry about your pretty public face, Organa. I’m not here for your investigations, I’m here to save countless lives. We’ll get your evidence and let you decide how to handle it. We’ll play nice.”  
  
Rex wanted to diffuse the situation, “Saw, we all want the same thing.”  
  
\--  
  
After the briefing, Saw accompanied Rex to his quarters to get reports on the First Battle and Point Rain campaigns.  
  
Rex knew Saw would read them, too. He’d always done his homework assignments.  
  
“So how about it, Captain, you feel like coming with us, giving us the grand tour,” Saw asked unexpectedly.  
  
“Not if you paid me,” Rex shuddered at the thought of the mind worms.  
  
Saw shrugged and laughed somewhat awkwardly, “Fine…if you don’t hear from us in two rotations, send backup. I hear you have Jedi?”  
  
“We’ll, they’re no Skywalker, but they’ll do in a pinch,” Rex replied, copying the data files from his old helmet onto a chip, “I hear you’ve been doing a lot of good work, though. I hear you have been busting people out of those Imperial work camps.”  
  
“Everybody’s doing that. It’s a great way to recruit. It sows chaos, keeps the Empire busy putting out little fires,” Saw leaned casually against the wall.  
  
“Everybody’s doing that? Well, nice to know the rebellions are coordinating in some way, even if it’s just through common tactics,” Rex looked up, “Hey, can you give me some information?”  
  
“Anything for you, buddy,” Saw nodded.  
  
“I am looking for places to search. Coruscanti prisoner, early Empire, in the time when they were putting down pockets of resistance in the capital. Anyone who defied an Imperial rule or edict. Political prisoners.  
  
“Early empire, there weren’t many Republic prisoners, mostly Seppies and relocated populations like the Wookiees. And of course lots of your brothers were given severe sentences for minor charges. Bonteri told me the political arrests on Coruscant started around five years after the war, when they needed more labor for their factories. This is personal for you huh?” Saw cut to the heart of it.  
  
“It is. I would appreciate if we kept the discussion between us. I...” Rex found himself struggling to talk to someone who couldn’t read his feelings.  
  
“I understand,” Saw didn’t make a thing out of it. Maybe he could read some feelings. “I can find out for you. I have my sources. You want me to follow up and investigate?”  
  
“I can manage that myself, as you’re so fond of saying,” Rex risked a sentiment, “I’m glad you decided to cooperate with us.”  
  
“What do we do if we find anything or anyone? I will make sure I get that information,” Saw’s tone was cavalier.  
  
Rex kept his tone reasonable, “I advise caution. Those tunnels are dangerous. I know you’re trying to ‘save countless lives’, but don’t lose sight of the goals in front of you. What killed those bugs could still be down there for all we know. Not a time to go in waving flamethrowers around.”  
  
“What should we do with any weapons we find? You want a share? You did help plan the mission,” Saw offered.  
  
“As much as we probably could use it, I got a problem with using an inferior product. Geonosian tech was what the Seppies used. I have a lot of animosity for the brand.” Rex joked.  
  
“What about any prisoners? You want to interrogate them after we’re done with them?” Saw crossed his arms.  
  
“Saw…” Rex looked at him, trying not to sound judgmental.  
  
“What? You were the one who told me that good intel saves more lives than any shield. The Geonosians are known for one thing, weapons making. I’m sorry if that doesn’t sit well with Senator Public Face. I respect his ideals, but his way is ineffective. We need to know what the Empire killed these people over and we need to know now.”  
  
“You were the one outraged at the thought of a genocide. We don’t want to inflict any more suffering,” Rex tried to be logical.  
  
“What about the billions of lives we could lose?” Saw was close to anger.  
  
“We don’t know anything yet…,” Rex tried to defend caution.  
  
Saw uncrossed his arms and pointed at the door portal, “We’re not like this, Rex, we’re just regular guys. We have to do something.”  
  
“Don’t you think I want to? But we don’t know what has happened on Geonosis, the people left could be sick, or trapped. You don’t necessarily have to take prisoners, and we’d rather you didn’t. The Rebellion would like for you to just gather evidence,” Rex took a deep breath, “I…would like you to.”  
  
Saw looked disappointed. That hurt.  
  
“What are you with these guys for, Rex?” Saw asked, “They don’t understand you. You get it. You do what has to be done.”  
  
Rex had never thought of himself as a politician. All he knew how to do was to speak from experience, “Saw, I agree with you. And we do want an alliance. But we also care how you do things. You and I have both learned so much about the things you have taken away from you…”  
  
Saw looked choked up. Probably thinking of Steela.  
  
“Not just the people, but the little parts of yourself, the memories of who you were. Someone more compassionate, someone more trusting, someone who is what they wanted us to be,” Rex didn’t mind being choked up in front of his friend.  
  
Saw sniffed and wiped an eye, “I was sorry to hear about Ahsoka.”  
  
Rex leveled with his friend, “I fight for them here because it is what Ahsoka wanted. Some people might think I’m stupid to still care.”  
  
“Why? This is exactly how I feel. Steela would never have let me rest until I did all I could to overthrow the Empire. I don’t want anything for myself,” Saw admitted.  
  
“What do you do when you feel like you don’t have anything left to give?” Rex asked.  
  
Saw chuckled, “Make sure you’ve taught young people to continue without you. How did Ahsoka go out?”  
  
“She’s gone. That’s all I know. That’s all I can know,” Rex maintained, “She was protecting people.”  
  
“That’s all I’d expect from her. Without her, I wouldn’t still be here,” Saw raked his thumb across his neck.  
  
“Me neither,” Rex choked a laugh and regained his composure. He handed Saw the data file.  
  
“Come fight with us, Rex. We respect you,” Saw sounded like he wanted Rex on his side for validation.  
  
“No, I’m where I belong. I’m where she put me. She always wanted what was best for me. But listen, you know I wouldn’t say anything to them about you that I wouldn’t say to your face,” Rex wanted to be sure his friend knew he had integrity.  
  
Saw waved the data chip a little, “I know. But you don’t know what’s at stake. Maybe none of us do. Look, I said I’d listen to you and I have. We HAVE to stop it if we can. Not just find out about it,” Saw turned and walked away without giving Rex his word that he would abide by his request.  
  
\--  
  
If recklessness is a sin of the youth, overconfidence tends to be a flaw of older men. Saw’s mission ‘went sideways’ as everyone thought it would. Nobody else from his team lived through it, but Saw survived. He gathered enough evidence to prove that the Empire had buried the bugs in their own tunnels and gassed them like in an exterminator’s tent. Rex had filed a detailed report for Senator Organa about all they saw on the rescue mission. Rex was glad they were able to find at least some signs of life there. Thankfully, no mind worms were encountered.  
  
On the ride back to Chopper base, Saw gave Rex his disk back. “Thanks. Hey, I looked into that prison situation. A lot of political prisoners they claim to have ‘lost track of,’ which is code for they don’t want us to know the conditions they’re housed in or what kind of tech they have them making. Most Coruscanti prisoners were sent to places along the Corellian Run, like Dalchon, Rea, or…”  
  
Rex thought for a second, “Shimia.”  
  
“What?”  
  
Rex switched on his helmet projector and showed a hologram of a map of the space lane.  
  
“So you know it?” Saw asked, “Could your friend be there?”  
  
“Only one way to find out,” Rex shrugged.  
  
\--  
  
Rex and Kanan were walking the halls of an abandoned Imperial facility on Shimia.  
  
“Ugh, this place doesn’t look like it’s been inhabited for a while,” Rex observed, holding his old Kamino issue torch in one hand, a pistol in the other.  
  
“I sense a place of pain,” Kanan was able to navigate his way in the dark without a flashlight. He had his hands behind his back.  
  
“I saw some rooms back there had some devices I recognize. Looks like things the Kaminoans used to use for reprogramming,” Rex didn’t need to be Force sensitive to feel the evil in that place.  
  
“Do you think it’s been hit, like Saw does, freeing the prisoners?” Kanan asked.  
  
“Saw didn’t take credit, and he definitely would. I can’t imagine who could have done this, this is extensive damage. Heavy weaponry. Whoever it was made their point,” Rex thought the blast points looked like fire from heavy cannons. Rex couldn’t imagine who would feel the need to be that theatrical when much less would have sufficed.  
  
They made their way to the warden’s keep, a suite of rooms that included his office and apartment. This place had been rather savagely trashed.  
  
“There was rage here,” Kanan sensed.  
  
Rex blushed as he saw opened cabinets and their spilled contents, pornography and painful looking sexual devices. He didn’t feel the need to share the gruesome details. They walked down a flight of stairs to a catwalk to look over a cell block, where the empty cells lay open, stray bedding lay scorched on the floor as if it had been burned intentionally. No sign of any people or droids. Any dead would have been retrieved. Rex shone his light around and suddenly paused on a wall. There, painted in gigantic blue letters was a striking graffito.  
  
Kanan sensed Rex’s shock. He put his hand on Rex’s shoulder.  
  
Rex explained, “It’s...paint on a wall. A message intentionally left behind.”  
  
“What does it say?” Kanan asked.  
  
Rex held up his torch and gazed at it, pronouncing the words breathlessly, “Skywalker Lives.”


	2. Reconstructive Surgery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cody arrives home to some alarming news.

Rishi  
  
Blue and Cody snaked their way in the warren of tunnels that had originally been dug into the towering cliffside by the indigenous Rishii birds. That was millennia before. The sentient birds had been driven off by disease and force of arms by the Galandan colonists when they arrived. On damp days you could still smell bird guano. During the war, the Separatists had added tunnels and the technological components to construct the mining facility to extract the exonium fuel from deep below the mountains. Once the war ended, the mine passed to Imperial hands. They discreetly began sending their military convicts, mostly Fett clones, to form the labor force. Cody’d been made warden of this prison because he’d lost the Emperor’s favor and Tarkin liked a good joke if the punchline was somebody else being miserable.  
  
Only Tarkin and the Emperor had known the specific location to which Cody had been assigned, the facility’s existence was classified information. Yet neither one of those bastards had publicly acknowledged Cody’s becoming a rogue asset. They simply ceased to admit he existed. Once he had organized the prison’s population into a pirate crew, the Empire secretly paid him a modest stipend to remain no more than a pest. It was only recently that Cody’s actions had caused his organization to be branded as ‘terrorist’ and ‘Separatist’. He had at least graduated to being a ‘little upstart warlord’, and, among some humiliated pipsqueaks, a ‘threat to galactic security’. Still, nowhere did they allow it to be known his identity. It wasn’t a story where Tarkin or the Emperor looked good, he supposed. They had taken it for granted that they had him under control. They had thought he was too unsophisticated to learn how to play their little games. They didn’t appear to have told Captain Killian whom he and his task force were hunting. Cody was curious why that was. He filed it away as something to find out about.  
  
Deep in thought, Cody was quiet on the lift as Blue droned on soothingly in the background about how he wished his Weequay ex-girlfriend wouldn’t antagonize him so much.  
  
The lift halted and the doors opened. Cody and Blue entered into an open series of consoles. Droids were at most of them. Cody waved at the ones who looked up. A few waved back. Blue kept talking. Cody nodded at the appropriate times.  
  
Cody pressed the panel on a door to enter The Offices, scanned his wrist and the door opened. They boarded a lift and go up to another series of meeting rooms, cubicles and hallways scanning their wrist chips to gain access to each door. During the day, these rooms would be full of activity, planning and plotting, running the security for the Dorn-Qek-Aurek.  
  
Cody and Blue entered a room where three young natural borns and one young brother with a tattooed face looked up from listening equipment. The “Intelligence Service”, as Cody called them, with air quotes included. They were his most trusted advisors, a close knit group he’d trained himself. A more cheerful group of spies and assassins, one could not find in the galaxy. They all stood up and came over to slap hands with Cody and Blue.  
  
Cody patted his brother, Victory, on the shoulder.  
  
“How did it go in the Mid-Rim?” Vic asked, adjusting a gold ring on his finger. Its shamelessly large bezel bore an intaglio that showed him punching out a Swoke on Tatooine.  
  
“Well, a few of theirs hit by friendly fire. Toby got hit in the arm, but other than that, no casualties. The captain had heard of our organization this time. We might actually merit a little attention from the Imperials,” Cody responded flatly.  
  
“Which messaging resonated with him,” Stabbi, one of the natural borns picked up a datapad, making to do a survey.  
  
“The ‘death to the Empire’ rhetoric,” Blue barked out.  
  
“Do we have to be so over the top?” Cody asked.  
  
“It gets attention,” Goran, another enbee spoke up.  
  
“That you so desperately crave,” Stabbi put in.  
  
Blue grew animated, “You should have heard the brother this time, saying he wants to send a representative to the Senate to talk about our right to sovereignty. I never seen a brother be so pompous.”  
  
Cody shook his head as they roared with laughter, “You gotta speak to them in their language.”  
  
They could laugh all they wanted, Cody intended to do it. He pointed a finger at Vic, “Talk to the new recruits, we got Niner and five others, they can give you the latest info on Imperial mundanity, you’ll want to take their depositions tomorrow while their memories are still fresh. We can start planning the next raid.”  
  
“We’ll keep them busy,” the tattooed brother smiled. The “Intelligence Service” loved taking depositions because they could ask whatever questions they wanted. They had fun with it. Lately, their preoccupation had been trying to get people to say ‘Moff Pi-ying’ as many times as possible.  
  
“Good. I want to sleep in tomorrow. I’m finally back in my own bed,” Cody made to leave, but Vic beckoned him back.  
  
“Is there something else?” Cody asked.  
  
“We got some chatter?” Vic waved at the listening equipment. “Possible interesting communications? The Mandalore sector?”  
  
“Oh, right,” Cody grumbled something about a real ‘kitpack question’.  
  
Routinely, they listened in on Imperial communications as well as monitoring the various outlets of the holo-net news. They also spied on other sectors. The fractured situation in the Outer Rim provided an opportunity for some useful trading partners or buyers of information. Whatever was required, clones were adaptable. It was also helpful to know what they were up against if anyone turned hostile.  
  
Goran handed him a headset.  
  
Cody grinned, “How is the situation in the Mandalore sector?”  
  
Another young man, Sh’ehn answered, “An absolute soap opera. We’re writing a musical play about it.”  
  
Cody rolled his eyes and looked at the clock on the wall, “When is the chatter from?”  
  
“It came in earlier today. Just a couple of hours ago from one of the unallied worlds,” Goran switched on a console to play the recorded transmission. “From what I can tell, they’ve been playing every side, Empire, Rebels.”  
  
Cody listened. A distress call, a voice uttered a word, then silence. Cody’d heard it more times than he could count lately. ‘Ori'ramikad...’  
  
He knew what it meant. Gar Saxon, the Imperial governor, and his special forces had been going from system to system in the sector and eliminating clans who refused to recognize him as the legitimate ruler. Their method was downright systematic. Imperial technology, Mandalorian skill. No one ever knew where they would strike next.  
  
“Which world?” Cody asked.  
  
“That one you keep asking about,” Goran switched off the recorder, “Concord Dawn.”  
  
The numbers on the clock blurred as Cody reeled internally. His face remained impassive but lost some color.  
  
“Men, prepare my ship, we’ll be going immediately,” Cody laid the headphones to rest.  
  
So much for sleeping in his own bed that night.  
  
\--  
  
Cody arrived home to see his pet tooka sitting on the porch and lashing her tail. Cody stroked her fur and she purred and rolled over. He pulled his hand away, “You’re not going to trick me with that again. You get vicious.”  
  
Whiskeysnap rolled back over onto her feet and rubbed up against his leg.  
  
“Daddy!” Three little voices shrieked in cacophony. The tooka ran.  
  
Cody hugged all three of the triplet boys at once, “I missed you.”  
  
“What’d you do, Dad,” Junior asked, “Did you shoot anybody?”  
  
“I got a new ship and six of my brothers have come home with me,” Cody told him instead. “Where is your mother?” Cody handed his rucksack to his son, Aliik, who proceeded to rifle it for snacks.  
  
“I’m here,” his wife, Lina, called from the kitchen. She came out still wearing her overalls from work. Like everyone else in the settlement, the queen worked on communal projects like the seasonal harvests and infrastructure maintenance. She was just like anybody else, she insisted. But people kept asking her what they should do. She was content to answer if it helped get things done. She was smiling, but she took one look at Cody’s face and grew concerned. “What is it?”  
  
Cody took his wife's hand, “I need to hurry up and shower while dinner is in the oven, come up and keep me company.”  
  
She nodded, “Sure, you can help me pick out something to wear.”  
  
“Can we help?” Aliik asked.  
  
“Not...this time,” Cody needed a to tell his wife what was going on. When he got to his room and locked the door, he realized that Lina had misread his cue. They made their way to bed before they even found towels. Afterwards, Cody felt guilty holding his wife in his arms. He decided in the shower that it would be impolite to delay the news any longer.  
  
“I need to leave tonight,” Cody finally admitted. He got out and started to dress. Then he took down a duffle full of weapons from the closet, unzipped it and made a few selections.  
  
Lina looked disappointed. “Again?” her voice confirmed it.  
  
She got out and wrapped a towel around her. She went to a mirror to comb her hair.  
  
Cody went over to embrace her from behind gently, “I really didn’t plan this one.”  
  
She shrugged. She had heard that before.  
  
Cody just decided to rip off the scab, “It’s about Alis.”  
  
Her face twitched involuntarily, like a wince of pain. She recovered it quickly. As a public figure, she’d adopted that skill. She looked at the mirror so she could see him without turning, “Is she alright?” her voice cracked.  
  
Cody was honest, “I don’t know.”  
  
Her eyes widened, “What does this mean?” She turned look him in the eyes.  
  
“From the sounds of it, the Protectors’ outer base was hit by the Imperial vassal,” he embraced her, brushing hair off of her face, “Once they’ve wiped out the main force, they’ll go to the planet and move from one settlement to another massacring all of the fighters and any farmers who resist. I have to see if I can get to her homestead before they arrive there.”   
  
She didn't believe in secrecy between them. She wouldn't have allowed it.   
  
“You know where my daughter is?” she turned away and busied herself dressing.  
  
Cody gulped. He'd never told her what she didn't ask. “I’ve always known.”  
  
The brief silence between them was pregnant with feeling. Cody had been the one who anonymously asked the Protectors to find his wife’s daughter Alis, back when he and Lina both thought they were going to be worked to death by the Empire one way or another. They had agreed that the girl deserved a better life than what they had. Neither one of them had foreseen how successful their little revolution would be. By the time they had their own children, the guilt had begun to creep in. It was a fight they’d always silently agreed to ignore, though it stood between them like a cumbersome pillar of ice cluttering up a small room.  
  
Lina swallowed and closed her eyes for a moment, “I still can’t believe she’s been there all this time and I can’t see her.”  
  
His wife’s disappointment burned a hole through Cody like a lightsaber thrust into a door.  
  
As a race of people who were most famous for shooting their commanding officers in the back, clones were considered complete cowards by most Mando. Asking the Protectors to rescue Lina’s daughter had seemed harmless, since at the time, they had the means and Cody didn’t.  
  
Cody answered what he realized was too harshly, “Do you have any idea what kind of a fighting force the Protectors are? We’re small time, compared. I could never have gone near their sector before. They’d kill her to get to me.”  
  
The queen sat down slowly, like her clothes were heavy, “Someone has a high opinion of himself,” she joked, smiling through the welling tears.  
  
“Her planet will be attacked, there is no stopping it. But there’s a chance I can make this work. That’s why I’m handling it personally. I want you to know,” Cody sat down beside her, “I don’t want you to think that I left her there because she’s not mine. If I had been able to think of something... but this is the first chance I’ve seen. I’m leaving as soon as we can.”  
  
“I never doubted you. If anyone can do this, it’s you,” she pulled close and nuzzled his shoulder.  
  
Cody hugged his wife. Then he got up and checked another duffle bag full of communications equipment, “I’ll fix this. I promise.” He holstered his sidearm, then put on a dress coat over it to look presentable at dinner.  
  
The queen wiped her eyes with her fingers and put on some pretty clothes and a calm expression.  
  
\--  
  
The dinner guests had started to arrive. Cody put his cases near the back door and hung back as he always did, letting his wife wade in to the social fray. On a typical evening, they had guests to dinner with them. Some, like Blue, were fixtures since the early days when they left the prison and they had been living there in tents, before the permanent houses were built. At night, people would share firesides and food, so communal dinners had just become customary. Other guests were neighbors and friends, the faces rotated. Cody always had brothers posted around the house as security these days. Never could be too cautious. But his wife liked talking to people, so the custom continued.  
  
Tonight the guests included Sotna and the new guys. Cody waved at Niner, who came over, the other guys followed.  
  
“Welcome,” Cody told them.  
  
“I told you, this brother is downright organized!” one of Niner’s entourage marveled at the atrium. Cody was proud, he’d designed the house himself.  
  
“Niner, did Sotna get you all down to the hospital yet?” Cody put out a hand, Niner slapped it.  
  
“Yeah, we’re a hundred percent better. Brother what have you been DOING out here?” Niner marveled.  
  
“Just giving a shit. It’s not that hard actually,” Cody joked.  
  
“Dad, who’s this?” Junior had come over to be the first to interrogate new people, as usual.  
  
“This is my brother Niner, and those are Fiver, Ray, Timi, Gil, and Loagy,” Cody told him. “Brothers, this is Junior, my son.  
  
“Is he a…clone?” Niner asked.  
  
“I’m not a duplicate of anybody,” Junior explained.  
  
“But,” Niner struggled, “Is he one of us?”  
  
“He’s combined. His mother and myself. Not in the original way for that, but the result is the same. A completely unique individual,” Cody patted his son on the shoulder.  
  
“Of course, I am a triplet. Thank the Force for reconstructive surgery, so my mom says. We were all pretty big,” Junior informed them.  
  
Lina was suddenly at Cody’s side, speaking through her teeth, “Thank you for that, Junior. Thank you.”  
  
Junior was only five, he didn’t detect his mother’s sarcasm, “You’re welcome.”  
  
Cody judiciously resisted the urge to laugh.  
  
Niner changed the subject, “Triplets?”  
  
“And twins before that,” Lina laughed a little, red faced.  
  
“Lina, I don’t know if you remember me from Coruscant, I’m Fiver,” Fiver spoke up.  
  
“Which Fiver were you, Fiver with the 317th, Fiver in the 112th, Fiver in the 4th, there were two of those…” Lina had lived near the Jedi Temple during the war. She had been friendly with a lot of clones who worked in the area.  
  
“I was with the 501st,” Fiver answered. “Lina, are the rumors true? Is Captain Rex here?”  
  
There was a sudden pause in the conversation.  
  
“As far as I know, he died,” the queen glanced at Cody. As far as Cody and Lina knew, he didn’t want to be found.  
  
Lina’s house droid came up and clicked at them, offering them a plate of mini hors d’ouvres, which was perched atop one of his gun hands.  
  
“So how does a lunch counter girl become a queen?” Niner asked.  
  
“Love can overturn mountains,” she said somewhat cryptically. She and Cody exchanged a glance.  
  
His comlink chirped, so Cody kissed his wife, grabbed a mushroom tartlet from the tray, then he left out the back door.  
  
“Where is he going?” Fiver asked.  
  
Lina didn’t miss a beat, “He’s doing some consulting. He’s planning on being back for the dedication of the new park in three rotations. Has Niki seen you guys yet? She’ll be so happy you’re here.”  
  
\--  
  
Concord Dawn was one of several unallied sovereign worlds in the Mandalore Sector. The planet had been the ancestral homeland of the Protectors, an elite fighting force that traditionally served as guards to the ruler of the Mando people. With the fall of the pacifist New Mandalorian government, the Protectors had been forced back to their traditional territory.  
  
The Empire openly supported Gar Saxon, the prime minister in Sundari. But, according to DQA intelligence, behind his back, they also funded the Protectors, keeping them strong enough to oppose Saxon. Cody had worked in Imperial intelligence after the war, this was a standard tactic of the Empire. It kept minor players busy so they never coalesced into a threat.  
  
His wife’s daughter, Alis, had been adopted into the household of Cabur Nexo Zyne, leader of one of the original Concord Dawn clans. Zyne had been one of the clones’ combat trainers on Kamino, and Cody knew him to be a kind person. Back when he was prison warden and Lina was serving a life sentence, Cody had discovered Alis’ whereabouts in the Imperial detention system. He had sent the information about the workhouse for wards of the state on Tiprin to Zyne anonymously. The Protectors were able to affect a rescue for all the children.  
  
Cabur Zyne might still have been a friend, who Cody could have reasoned with, but he had died. Cody wasn’t sure how he should play it to get his questions answered.  
  
Cody and the mission crew took one of the re-fitted Imperial shuttles that their crew kept stealing. This one was called ‘Whiskeysnap’ and had nose art of the tooka with its back leg raised high, washing its anus shamelessly.  
  
Cody tried to get some sleep in his chair, letting the three natural borns from the “Intelligence Service”, Sh’ehn, Goran, and Staabi, fly the ship. They worked on their musical play. The song they were writing for Pre Visla was pretty catchy.  
  
Cody woke up when they came out of hyperspace at a safe distance. They approached the system with caution, scanning the area of the third moon, where they knew the outer base to be. There were life forms, but no power at the base’s coordinates. The security had apparently self-destructed. This was usually attached as a failsafe to prevent enemies from re-using bases against their previous occupants. This left communications jammed and the base vulnerable.  
  
No one tried to stop Cody’s shuttle from flying on by.  
  
They went to the largest settlement on the planet itself. Security was minimal, their fake ids passed. Mando were extremely suspicious of outsiders, so Cody had told the guys to try to look like locals. They had thrown together outfits that looked like what they thought yokels would wear. The boys were all from Sundari, they had a low opinion of colonials if their clothing choices were any indication.  
  
Cody’s plan was to ask questions playing some hapless medical trader who had wandered in accidentally now that the air defenses were gone. His costume was suitably ridiculous to distract from his face.  
  
They entered what was evidently the main commercial center of the spaceport, a combination trading post and eating establishment. Mandalorians didn’t put much focus on urban development. From what anyone understood of Concord Dawn, it was inhabited by farming villages with clan houses at the center of each one.  
  
If Alis was there, they needed directions to where Zyne’s farm was. The men walked in and began to circulate separately. Cody sat down at the bar.  
  
The droid bartender approached him. It addressed him in Basic, “You grew out your hair? I didn’t know you were shaving your head, I thought you were just bald.”  
  
“Pardon?” Cody looked closely at the droid.  
  
“And no beard. Got your face a little chewed up around the eyebrow, I see. Is that why I haven’t seen you in here for a while.”  
  
Interesting. The facial recognition programming on droids never was that good at differentiating clones. This one didn’t even seem to know that there was more than one of them.  
  
Cody nodded stupidly, “Uh…yeah. How long since I’ve seen you?”  
  
“A month. Where’s the girl that usually comes in with you?” the droid’s ‘cheerfulness’ setting was on high.  
  
Cody bluffed, “Well, you know how it is…”  
  
The droid dried a glass with a towel, “She was just in here to get transport off world. I heard she left with someone.”  
  
This was interesting. Cody didn’t know any clones had connections to Concord Dawn. If Boba was in the area, he needed to watch out.  
  
Still, Cody was curious, “Well, in truth, I have been looking for her. You say she left?”  
  
“Last time I saw Alis was a few days before the distress signal from the moon that got everyone here all worked up.”  
  
Cody was frozen in his seat. Alis had been there. The Protectors’ camp was destroyed, the distress signal would have gone to the planet, telling people to defend their homes. Cabur Zyne’s family was likely there doing just that. Cody hoped the kids had been able to obtain directions. They needed to go right away. Alis might already be back. Cody’s heart beat faster, but he did his best to hide it.  
  
Cody chose his phrasing cautiously, “Well, tell her I’m here now if she comes looking for me. Did she say where she thought I was? I’ve been away for a while.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Thanks.” Cody left payment for the drink and a generous tip.  
  
The droid nodded, “You have a good night, Rex.”  
  
It was everything Cody could do to keep himself from trembling.


	3. Show Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wolffe is working on himself to be the best him he can be.

Recorded on Commander Wolffe's Player Pod  
  
“(Deep breath)  
  
“Change is coming. Suffice to say, I’ve been through this before, the signs are there. Overturning, upheaval, movement, desperate people running, difficulty in getting reliable information. Except this time, I’m cash poor, energy poor, and probably close to the end of my days. I have still never had one job in my life that wasn't hard yakka. Some days I get so tired. Yet, people still ask me for stuff. Karking Rex.  
  
“To begin properly, I would like to start with something positive. I’m pretty open about the fact that I’m in recovery for over-enthusiastic insobriety. If I hadn’t been specifically engineered to have organs with strong regenerative capabilities, there is no way I would still have a functioning liver. I don’t deserve one, the way I’ve been.  
  
"Anyway, I recently had a close scrape, but I was able to get myself together. All by myself. It might not sound like much, but that is really something…for me.  
  
“I went mostly clean and completely sober after the war. Relapses happened. But I’d always had Rex before. He’d usually find me by the third drink and talk to me. Not scolding, nothing judgmental. He didn’t sound disappointed. But he’d just be kind to me. I would usually end up feeling guilty and inducing vomiting. Then I’d get back on the figurative wagon.  
  
“So the last time I had a drink. That was a few months ago. Altered states of consciousness, like from starvation or extreme stress, or drugs like alcohol, they make you question what you know is reality. Or put you more in tune with different shades of reality. Different points of view, you know? The confusion can often crystallize into clarity. Whereas, with something like insanity, dementia or head trauma, like Gregor’s got, you don’t question YOUR reality.  
  
“But this last time, I was drunk because we’d been stuck for days in a sandstorm and I really thought that was it, Gregor and I were done for. We were clicks away from any charted settlement. We didn’t have enough food or fuel to get to anywhere on the charts and our walker was in danger of getting stuck or buried. So I figured what the hey? I’ll get shitty.  
  
“The liquor was Rex’s. I had found it in the wreck of the old AT-TE when we were salvaging it after he left. I gave in to a strange impulse and hoarded that liquor for some purpose. I could have given the booze to Gregor, he doesn’t have an alcohol problem, as far as he can remember. But I didn’t for some reason. Like an animal in a cage, I’ve started to obey impulses as coping behaviors. It’s like the alcohol just took over. So I hid it.  
  
“So that’s how I got drunk last time. When we got stuck, I thought that my having that alcohol was an omen. Like it had been sent for that occasion, for me to go out in some fashion that was appropriate for me.  
  
“To drink it, I had to out-smart the little Imaginary Rex voice in my mind. I skulled shots like Cody on payday, so I wouldn’t have a chance to make myself throw up before I got too intoxicated. You got a span of time before you digest fluids, pills take even longer to hit the system, especially with the dense biscuit rations I feed Gregor to block up his intestines. Ever since he started ‘accidentally’ taking too many pills. Not on my watch, buckaroo. But if you shoot a bunch of distillates, they can hit the system at once and there won’t be anything in the stomach to throw up. Any-who, what started out as a nice little rant about the injustices surrounding soup eventually turned into a full on angry yell-fest.  
  
“I drank so fast Imaginary Rex didn’t show up to speak to me until I was good and belligerent. There wasn’t a thing he could do about it. He had to listen to me. He said things never happened the way I say. Too bad I got all kinds of receipts. I remember everything. I would never talk to real Rex that way, though.  
  
“I felt bad when Gregor got scared and hid.  
  
“I told him I was sorry a figurative million times. He doesn’t like loud noises. But sometimes I can’t help myself. Like I get so tired of controlling myself all the time, of not being allowed to show my feelings because my conditioning has forced me to repress. I had just had enough.  
  
“The next morning, Gregor came to wake me up. He forgot why he hid and came out the next morning all excited. He wanted to show me that the storm had passed. The walker was a little frosty, but everything was clean and worked beautifully.   
  
“Now I’m to the best part, the whole desert was covered in a blanket of snow. That’s what had stopped the storm.  
  
“That might not sound like much, but it has never snowed on Seelos in all the time we've lived here. We knew something important must have happened. I tried my best to sort out what.  
  
“Declan managed on the fuel fumes and detected a remote monastery on the horizon. We just barely made it to this Whills mission that was just sitting out in the wilderness. The brothers, the monks, I mean, they helped us. They had food, fuel and water, they just gave it to us. They asked us to leave after a few days because these poor guys had taken a vow of silence and so this situation was a fricking carnival of possibilities for me. I hadn’t talked to anyone besides Gregor for months at that point, I had a lot stored up. That’s how I got better at playing the guitar. They couldn’t criticize, so I was able to build up some confidence. I could tell when they were feeling it.  
  
“Anyway, of course after we were saved like that, I was full of the Force, like I actually felt I had had a religious experience. Gregor and I took a day to set up a roadside shrine to Argeiphontes, the Dornish god of travel, commerce, and wealth. The monument is a low wall of stacked stones around an impressive purple obelisk, which is not how a Dornish penis looks, but I have always anthropomorphized this Dornish god in my imagination. So it is a sort of self-portrait.  
  
“Obviously I have been sober ever since and I think it’s to some purpose. I think it’s important. Things are changing in the universe. If the storm hadn’t passed when it did, I might have succumb to a strange impulse and shot Gregor and myself before we got buried alive and ran out of air. Or he might have killed me when the hunger got to him. I couldn’t stop imagining desperate scenarios like that, they just kept popping into my head from a more sinister source than Imaginary Rex. So I drank and yelled that night because that kept THAT voice quieter. I didn’t listen to it and the snow came. I know the things are connected. You can say such a thing defies scientific reality, but that’s your point of view. I took it as a sign that I need to do better with myself. So, I'm working on me.”

  


Kwymartown, Seelos  
  
Wolffe stepped up to a takeaway counter. “Uh…could I get a couple of the goldie wraps...”  
  
The Ithorian mumbled at him, sounding like a muffled horn.  
  
Wolffe nodded, “Yeah, sauce on both. And a couple of fizzy drinks. How much?”  
  
The Ithorian answered.  
  
“What? That is oasean robbery, my man!” nevertheless, Wolffe handed over the wupiupi, even putting a tip in the cup. He made sure to miss the cup and drop the coins in front of it.  
  
The Ithorian said something back and handed him his takeaway bag.  
  
Wolffe waved, “I’ll see you next time.”  
  
The Ithorian laughed as if that was a joke. Wolffe’s ‘enhancement’ made him an object of pity in that part of the galaxy. Probably because few people had ever seen top of the line Core tech like that before. Most people assumed it wasn’t functional. To encourage that point of view, Wolffe would do things like grab for his food on a table and misjudge the distance when he was out in public, or miss the basin at a communal urinal. Wolffe figured, the more pathetic he and Gregor looked, the less likely they were to get robbed. Either because they looked poor or because they were so poorly looking, they elicited sympathy from even the most hardened criminals. Also, sometimes it helped with women.  
  
Wolffe entered the bright fluorescent light of what passed for a laundromat on Seelos. He looked around. Mahti was emptying the token box on a clothes washer. Wolffe snuck up behind her and asked in a silly voice, “Excuse me, Ma’am, how much to wash my pants?”  
  
She turned and looked at him, her sparkling eyes bright under the lights. She didn’t really look glad to see him, “Where have you been? You roll up in here after all this time?”  
  
“It’s quite a story, actually,” Wolffe ran his hand over his hair.  
  
Mahti shook her head, “And it will be total shaak poodoo, as usual.”  
  
“Don’t be like that,” Wolffe said gently. He held up the takeaway bag, “I brought dinner.”  
  
“Ugh. Alright, I’ll wash your pants,” Mahti took Wolffe’s hand in her green one, then she looked down and shook her head, “I must have low blood sugar or something.”  
  
They locked the door and were in a scandalous position bent over a washing machine, with no pants in sight when Gregor came by banging on the window. “Wolffe! I’m being followed!”  
  
“What the hell?” Wolffe looked almost startled enough to stop.  
  
Gregor looked horrified. He turned his back while Wolffe disengaged and adjusted.  
  
“Sorry, Mahti, uh…it’s clear I have to handle this,” Wolffe was already packing up his newly cleaned laundry from the machine.  
  
She swore under her breath in Rodian, “Ittu! You are unbelievable.”  
  
Wolffe backed cautiously out of the establishment, “Keep the food, I’ll get something else. Thank you for a lovely time.”  
  
She still hadn’t eaten and that low blood sugar had turned her aggressive, he could just sense it. Wolffe was genuinely sorry to be leaving. He loved angry girls.  
  
Gregor was standing in the darkened street, he looked sidelong at Wolffe once he emerged from door.  
  
“She won’t stay mad. I made sure she got hers first. That’s how I got free fabric softener,” Wolffe sniffed his shirt.  
  
From around the other side of Gregor, a small blonde head leaned forward, looking around to see Wolffe. The face was one of incomprehension.  
  
“Oh…and Gregor is not alone. O…kay…um…that was NOT what it looked like,” Wolffe scratched behind one ear.  
  
“So you weren’t falling on her…repeatedly?” the girl furrowed her brow in mock innocence, “Slippery floors, you know, with all that spilled soap.”  
  
“Wait, I’m confused, you mean you weren’t running diagnostics on that wash machine?” Gregor asked, winking at Wolffe as if he thought he was helping Wolffe out with a valid excuse.  
  
Wolffe felt his ears get a little hot. It was not a normal sensation for him, embarrassment. “Gregor…,” Wolffe asked cautiously, “who is your little friend?”  
  
“I’m Alis Grady, Clan Zyne, House Rau,” she held out her palm, but she did look a little unsure.  
  
Wolffe slapped it. He knew his hands were clean.  
  
The girl had come into the light from the window. Around her neck, Wolffe spied a familiar shape. A triangular akul tooth suspended from a string of beads. Only when Wolffe had last seen it, it wasn’t a necklace. It was part of the headdress of a certain Togruta Jedi. Now what was a Mando doing with that? He wondered. Wolffe had no way of knowing whether the jewelry was a gift or a trophy. He decided to be cautious.  
  
“So have you ever been to Shili,” Wolffe decided to try it coy as the three of them walked up the street toward the saloon.  
  
“No, I’ve hardly been anywhere,” she shook her head. “What’s that got to do with anything? Look, I need to find ‘That Guy’,” here she did air quotes, “so he can help me get in touch with ‘The Thing’.”  
  
Wolffe looked at Gregor. Gregor silently mouthed, ‘The Rebellion.’  
  
“Ooooooooooh,” Wolffe nodded, “The Thiiiiiiing.” Then he made a face at Gregor that meant, ‘Is she for real.’  
  
Gregor had forgotten why they were speaking in code, but he just let Wolffe handle it. He was eager to get back to his steak.  
  
“So you’re with them?” Wolffe asked her. He didn’t know if everyone in the Rebellion knew each other. He didn’t want to describe the Rebels he had seen, so he waited for her to mention them.  
  
“Well, no. Not exactly,” she admitted. “Aren’t you with them?”  
  
“No no no no no no! I know nothing about anything like that,” Wolffe felt a little panicked.  
  
“So why am I here?” she asked.  
  
Wolffe made a face at Gregor that asked, ‘Is this a joke?’ Gregor made the face that said he didn’t know.  
  
Gregor interjected, “She asked me to, so I sprung her from the police station using the old ‘mail order bride’ routine.”  
  
“Good one,” Wolffe nodded. It was one his routines.  
  
“But now I told her it was all good, she could go where she wanted. She’s following me,” Gregor sounded concerned.  
  
“Uh…Gregor, you can‘t bring home a person. You don’t know where she’s been,” Wolffe joked.  
  
“I’m sorry, you mentioned you’d be getting food? I haven’t eaten in days,” the girl’s eyes did look a little sunken.  
  
Wolffe winced internally. Gregor wanted to go to the saloon. Wolffe didn’t want the girl to be mistaken for a professional, or to give anybody the idea that she could be purchased. Then there was the problem of theft.  
  
Instead, Wolffe led them back to the Ithorian’s takeaway window. They each got a goldie wrap, a drink and a box of fried sand crickets.  
  
“Gregor, I hope you realize this is coming out of YOUR hooker budget,” Wolffe scolded under his breath. They took the food and gathered around an old fuel barrel as a table.  
  
“She thought I was Beardy,” Gregor mimed a beard.  
  
Wolffe looked over at the girl, “Really? And how do you know that guy, kid?”  
  
She had gotten to work on the insects, her mouth was full, “Um,” she swallowed hard. She had already drained her drink, so Wolffe gave her his. She drank half of it and gasped a little. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, “he’s my duumi. At least, I mean, that’s what they called it technically.”  
  
Wolffe and Gregor were first batchers. Most older clones knew a bit of Mandalorian from their combat trainers. Some better than others. The term was based on the word for ‘permission’.  
  
“I’m only Mandalorian by adoption. My mother was sent to prison and my father gave up custody, so I was sent to a workhouse. The Protectors of Concord Dawn liberated the camp and adopted us kids. But my mom knew That Guy back during the war, so when he found out where I was, he asked to see me,” she explained.  
  
Wolffe thought she was being way too free with the information. She was either naïve or she was trying to get them to reveal something.  
  
“Did you know that ‘duumi’ is a Mandalorian law that was written for when aristocracy became prisoners of war and wanted to visit relatives enslaved in other households,” Wolffe crossed one arm and rested his chin on the other hand. He didn’t think the girl grasped the significance. Too naïve to know why that might be insulting to a clone, to be forced to ask permission as if he was a servant. But Wolffe knew Rex. If what she said was true, he would never have let a little slap in the face like that stop him from seeing her. “So how is the old boy these days?”  
  
“I saw him a while ago. You mean you haven’t seen him?” she looked disappointed.  
  
Wolffe hated it when women look at him that way.  
  
“Not since he left us. He knows where we are, we don’t know where he is. It has to be that way,” Wolffe took back his fizzy drink and tossed a draught down his throat without touching the rim to his lips.  
  
Alis looked dubious, “Do you think I have hostile germs or something?”  
  
“I just didn’t want to presume. You might want another sip. Maybe you think I have germs. I don’t know. Gregor seems to think I have a mouth full of HPV, so we never share cups,” Wolffe flicked his chin at Gregor.  
  
“I’ll get her another one,” Gregor volunteered and bought another round from the Ithorian with some wupiupi. Wolffe cocked an eyebrow. He didn’t know where Gregor had come by the money. He’d have to watch that now, too.  
  
The girl was still champing at the bit, “I’m sorry to keep changing the subject, but the Empire is going to attack my planet. Can you help me find The Thing so we can get some useful help? We might only have days,” the girl pleaded.  
  
Wolffe looked around for probe droids or eavesdroppers. Then he spoke loudly in case he was overheard, “There is not much we can do.”  
  
“What?” she honestly looked like that was the first time she’d considered such a scenario. She wanted to be able to do something. “I don’t have time for this. My family forbade me to go anywhere, but I had to find my uncle, he might be able to help us. He said Seelos, so I thought that was where he lived. I know he’s with the Rebellion, do you know where the Rebellion is?”  
  
“Shhhhhh!” Wolffe put a finger to his lips. He decided she was either crazy or stupid. He whispered loudly, “Don’t be saying that! Even if I did know where he is, which I don’t, you want to get us all killed? Every major spaceport in the galaxy, either the Empire has agents embedded or they have informants calling in tips. All signs indicate our boy has probably done something to attract somebody's ire,” his eyes scanned the area behind Alis, “We need to get to our vehicle now, before anyone realizes we’re with you.”  
  
“Alright, let’s go,” Alis took the wrappers and baskets to the trash responsibly.  
  
Wolffe didn’t think he had specified that she was a part of the collective, “we”. In fact, the second clause of the sentence had strongly implied she was not.  
  
Gregor handed out sodas. Wolffe shouldered the laundry bag, cursing when he realized how noisy it was with the pill bottle in there.  
  
Wolffe took point and swiped his head in a direction and indicated which way to go. They walked casually, but with purpose, “Damn, we left the weapons in the walker.”  
  
Alis followed, “I have weapons,” she unholstered the blasters.  
  
“Nice!” Gregor pealed as she handed him one. She kept the other.  
  
“Please walk faster,” Wolffe looked back as Gregor trotted behind stuffing the last bit of his sandwich in his mouth.  
  
They heard rumblings in the distance as the lights of two TIE fighters and an Imperial shuttle appeared in the dark sky.  
  
“That’s sooner than expected. Alright, listen up, if they catch us, do NOT mention the you-know-what,” Wolffe pointed at a side street.  
  
Alis nodded, “The reb…”  
  
“Shhhhhhh! Stop saying it!” Wolffe waved his hands.  
  
“Right. The Thing. Sorry,” she whispered.  
  
“Now at minimum, what they’ll do is detain and search us. But they got to find us first,” Wolffe directed.  
  
The fighters sprayed a few blasts into the dunes to get everyone’s attention. Then all three ships landed on the beach at the edge of the lake. People scattered in every direction as the police force left their station and began to fire in the air to round everyone up for an inspection.  
  
“On second thought, I don’t NEED to go back for the steak,” Gregor interjected with one of his hilarious, yet inappropriate for the seriousness of the situation, jokes. Then he shot out a streetlight rather automatically and they ran up an alleyway. Wolffe had them double back to the main row of bars.  
  
Wolffe peered around the corner. The shuttle sat right in the shallows of the water’s edge. Wolffe looked back at the kid, “If they spot us, we’ll never make it out of the oasis. Let’s try the roofs.”  
  
The people who were outdoors began to cluster as some Stormtroopers emerged from the shuttle to menace them as well.  
  
Wolffe, Gregor and Alis climbed the side stairs to the saloon. The stairs were mostly used to go outside and use the piss corner, which in K-Town was the back left corners of drinking establishments. They didn’t tend to interchange corners because the town was a circle and they knew not to cluster piss basins in one place. The utilitarian stairs also went the height of the building because roofs were used for storage lockers that protected things against theft. The three of them made it up to the roof, staying low among the locked cages of equipment.  
  
Gregor whispered,“So, do you think this is because of the guy?”  
  
Wolffe whispered back, “Err on the side of caution and just assume that it is.” They looked over the edge of the roof.  
  
The police had marched out and had everyone in the town cowering with hands on their heads. Only once it was clear did the Imperial in charge deign to descend the ramp beside a humanoid female with a disk shaped weapon on her back.  
  
The Imperial was speaking to the woman in a tone that meant he was trying to impress her, “My sources in the police sent me a transmission stating that someone here tried to get in contact with 7567, the same one I captured once in the Del Zennis system that Kallas thought might be the one he saw here. They said she was bailed out not an hour ago, therefore there is a good chance he is still here with her.”  
  
The woman looked around like an animal sniffing the air. She looked displeased, “I can’t believe you convinced me to waste my time following this dead end lead Titus! I sense no trace of Jedi here.”  
  
“Facial scans on the camera in the police station confirmed a match to the person I’m looking for,” the admiral whose name was evidently Titus turned towards the line of establishments.  
  
The Imperial addressed the people, “We have heard rumors of human trafficking in this area.”  
  
Wolffe scoffed internally. Yeah, no shit.  
  
“We are looking for a missing girl,” Titus announced.  
  
Wolffe looked at Alis, “I thought you said you didn’t tell anyone anything.”  
  
“I didn’t, but I did try to contact him when they detained me, they said I was allowed one contact,” Alis explained.  
  
The Imperial showed a holo-still of Alis from her id.  
  
“You mean you didn’t give them a fake?” he hissed at her.  
  
“I don’t have a fake id,” Alis admitted.  
  
Gregor shook his head, “Who doesn’t have a fake id? Next you’re going to tell me you believe that if you’re not doing anything wrong you’ve got nothing to worry about from police.”  
  
Titus continued, “We will reward anyone who can give us useful information. She walked out of the police station tonight with,” a policeman handed him a datapad that would have a scan of the id Gregor gave. The picture was not very recognizable because it was ten years old and depicted another brother entirely, “Biggus…Dickus…” The Imperial immediately scowled across the way at the policeman. “Oh, of all the incompetent…!”  
  
Wolffe snickered. Gregor nodded knowingly.  
  
Alis looked confused, “Human trafficking? Wait, are you guys kidnappers?”  
  
It was a damn lie, but it was meant to raise doubts. People who heard it wouldn’t be able to sympathize with them. The Empire accused innocent people of all kinds of charges. Because there was no fighting their legal system.  
  
Wolffe was hurt, “You followed us!”  
  
She thought for a second, “Oh…right.”  
  
“The Empire does not look kindly on people who aid such criminal filth,” Titus announced. No one in town responded to Titus. Most of them were criminal filth, “A young girl’s life may be at stake.” Titus made sure to shake a fist as if he was enraged. A white girl was missing.  
  
“I’m telling you, this place isn’t worth the ammunition it will take to burn it to the ground.” The woman removed the disk and it extended into some kind of red spin blade. She threw it at the fuel tank of a generator, which immediately exploded, blowing a hole in the side of the building where it was mounted. She gave the signal and the ships’ guns fired on the major buildings, rupturing the fuel pipes and causing some explosions. Fires broke out, people started to run screaming from the buildings. She turned to the Stormtroopers, “Tear this town apart until you find her, she can’t have gotten far!”  
  
“Get down!” Wolffe held Alis, covering her from flying debris. He took her hand and they all jumped across rooftops making their way to the outskirts of town.  
  
The town was dark except for the fires where the buildings had exploded and the power lines melted. They had been overdue for a fire anyway, the way they were over-wired. They’d rebuild in the same shoddy fashion they always did.  
  
At the edge of town, Wolffe, Gregor and Alis climbed down an informal tangle of pipes and wires that hung off of nearly every concrete structure. They all swore, scraping up their hands a little on the bricks during the descent.  
  
They ran from street to street, headed out over the crest of dunes, seeing other people scattering and screaming. Nobody looked at them. They got to the gate at Tunko’s, but when they rang the buzzer, there was no response. Likely as not, Tunko had passed out and locked them out.  
  
Wolffe turned to ask about a plan, but Gregor managed to climb the brick wall around the back and vault over the concrete scrapyard fence. It was topped with broken glass fragments from bottles. Cheap but effective security. Yet, Gregor had been specifically trained in urban warfare. Brother was dangerous when that commando switch of his had been turned on. Wolffe worried sometimes that his brother could have killed him sleepwalking, so powerful was his muscle memory for rampage mode.  
  
Once inside, Gregor climbed up to Declan’s head and shot out Tonka’s plasma gate with its guns.  
  
“Come on,” Wolffe took the girl by the hand and they made a run for it to the leg ladder. They had to climb it while it was moving, because Gregor wasn’t so good at using brakes. So Declan seemed to be walking in circles. The whole while, Wolffe was cursing at himself for using a sack instead of a string bag for his laundry because he had to hold it while he climbed. Alis carried a full kitpack, so the climbing went slow and uneven.  
  
Gregor’s steering was also inconsistent. Alis and Wolffe had a few bumpy attempts to open the hatch, all the while shouting at Gregor to come and help them. He didn’t dare leave the controls as he stomped across the salvage yard. Alis got ahold of the hatch release and kicked the latch open. She and Wolffe scrambled up into the walker just in time to see Gregor steer the walker into Tunko’s herb garden at the center of the compound.  
  
“Gregor!” Wolffe shouted from the body, “Jam their signals and get us out of here. We can’t give them a chance to track us.”  
  
“What?” Gregor turned all the way around and the walker turned and broke part of the scrapyard wall.  
  
“Watch where you’re going!” someone shouted.  
  
Wolffe looked out the viewport to see Gregor’s ‘friend’ from earlier, standing at the side of the road shaking his fist.  
  
“This is why I drive!” Wolffe bullied his way in and took the controls.  
  
Gregor spun his chair around to face the girl, “Thank you very much for the loan,” he handed her weapon back to her. “Can I show you mine?”  
  
“Uh...what?” Alis sounded worried.  
  
“Look at this, it’s awesome,” Gregor took out his DC-17m, “It’s a gun, but it converts into two other kinds of gun!” he demonstrated by switching modes, “Assault rifle, sniper rifle, grenade lanucher!”  
  
“Um....cool,” she seemed confused.  
  
"You can try it if you want," Gregor smiled.  
  
\--  
  
Once he knew he was in the flatlands, Wolffe geared the walker into running mode. He had tested the thing out several times to see what it could do at top speed. It wasn’t as fast as two leggers, but it could support guns ten times the size of the old six leggers. And it could cover some terrain. Wolffe had never thought he would like the AT-AT as much as his old tanks, but he had to admit it was growing on him. A completely self-contained battle unit actually equipped to take out air attacks. Beautiful equipment.  
  
Wolffe was bombing along at close to top speed, steadily with only the low anterior lighting to guide them. He kept it low range. Rodents lept out between tufts of grass, running for their lives from the lights. Eventually, he slowed the pace and set it on auto pilot and shut the lights.  
  
The girl looked at Wolffe with a very puzzled expression. She was shocked, but not entirely horrified.  
  
Finally, she said, “This is weird, you’re not at all like Uncle Rex.”  
  
“Don’t let our looks deceive you, we’re more alike than you think,” Wolffe joked, keeping his eyes on his driving. They hadn’t seen any lights, the sensors hadn’t picked up any detection devices. Their transmissions weren’t being jammed. So they thought they were safe. But Wolffe was still eager to put some distance between them and where they’d just been.  
  
“Those people were trying to kill me back there? Why?” the girl honestly looked like she had never felt that feeling before.  
  
How cute, Wolffe thought.  
  
The girl blinked at Wolffe. He changed the subject, “Let me know what you think of this. I’ve been working on a holo-net advertising jingle for a product called ‘heaven meat’.”  
  
“What’s heaven meat?” she looked incredulous, and not just at the term.  
  
“You honestly don’t want to know,” Wolffe cleared his throat and began singing, “It’s raining meat! Hallelujah, it’s raining meat!”  
  
Alis pointed at Wolffe, “Isn’t that ripped off of something?”  
  
“Damn, I was afraid of that,” he pulled at his beard a little.  
  
“’Yub Nub’ is better, trust me,” Gregor interjected, “Now that’s songwriting.”  
  
“Thank you Gregor, duly noted,” Wolffe said, somehow sarcastically.  
  
“Just trying to help you be the best you you can be. Stay in your wheelhouse!” Gregor demanded.  
  
“If every artist listened to every critic that says they stink, there would be no art. Especially in our family,” Wolffe complained.  
  
“Is this some kind of joke?” Alis asked finally.  
  
Wolffe shrugged, “Yeah, nah, this is just what life is like on junkyard worlds where people go to be free to drink themselves to death.”  
  
“I thought you didn’t drink,” Gregor pointed out.  
  
“I don’t,” Wolffe protested, “Do you know that it’s like to be sober in this sinkhole full of drunks?”  
  
“Bitch, bitch, bitch!” Gregor made their most dismissive face.  
  
The girl laughed involuntarily.  
  
Wolffe handed her his player pod, “Find some music, kid. It helps me think.”  
  
Alis looked at the device, “Wow, how old is this thing?”  
  
“Hey, they don’t make things sturdy like that anymore. Besides, what is a farm raised provincial like you doing commenting on tech?” Wolffe complained. His masculinity was not fragile, but he was very sentimental about his artifacts.  
  
Alis laughed, “What provincial, there Kamino? I was born in the Temple District on Coruscant. Or as we called it….”  
  
Wolffe pointed, “’Rat Bottom, on account of it being at the base of the Ziggurat, of course.”  
  
Gregor looked up, “I thought it was on account of...”  
  
“It was,” Alis said seriously.


End file.
